I love the people… All the random folk I have just bumped into… From born Brazilians to those living there from elsewhere, to those just passing through. I Love all the wonderful people I have met. Marrianna, who has a zest for life and sense of adventure that is rare to find (except she wouldn’t follow me to Piraja) that you rarely see. Her perfect English confused my friend and I. He was convinced she was American. Of course he was wrong.

Back in Tobago I met up with Terje, who had come back from diving in Speyside and had been back a couple of days. Whilst there she said there was a Fisherman’s festival. On the Thursday we went to the beach at Mount Irvine. The sun was blazing! This wasn’t really a tourist beach so there were no parasols. We lay out for about 10 minutes before realising that we were torturing ourselves and moving underneath some trees where we promptly fell asleep for a few hours.

On my last night we went and had dinner together at the Kariwak Hotel, and there was a buffet which amounted to TT$240 (£24 or $48) each which is rather expensive by Trinidadian standards. She had been talking about the place non stop for two days and when we got there all she ate was one piece of potato and bits of roasted vegetable. She picked up some mint lamb but never ate it. If I wanted to eat some roasted veg I sure as heck wouldn’t play that much for the pleasure.

After the internet café, I went back to the guesthouse Candles in the Wind – The place I stayed, (pictured above) where first I saw the lady downstairs who was trying to get me to go to a doctor because I had a mosquito bite that had turned into a boil that was getting of control (as they always seem to do, does anyone know if an anti- histamine shot can prevent this problem?)

After watching the BET music awards on the TV until late late night. I woke up about 5 am and finished reading Kola Boof’s autobiography. I swear I would not have been able to rest until I finished it (it was that gripping) so it was a good job that I did so as soon as I got there. I love Kola Boof…She may come across radical but her observations are SPOT ON! I love the way that she doesn’t mince her words and is so raw with it.

always figured that my natural melanin was enough protection against the sun. I never used sunscreen, never burnt, never peeled and could never understand my friends who were darker than me that did use it. What was the point if your skin has an inbuilt protection mechanism? That was my thought process, until January the 30th 2007.

Looking at the weather forecast online the night before leaving for Lisbon, it had been deduced that Monday was going to be the hottest day on our trip at a scorching 23 Degrees Celsius (Oooooooh boiling… Not!) So we made plans to go to the beach this day. We put on our summer clothes and headed off to the place where we had originally intended to go the day before; the beach at Santo Amaro.

Today we went to meet Pina, one of the guys that we met on the way to the boat trip at Rossio Metro. We were going to the beach at Santo Amaro. We took the metro from the Rossio to Cais de Sodre. When we got to Cais de Sodre, our hanging around taking random pictures caused us to arrive on the platform as the train was about to leave, so in our mad rush we got on the train, but oooops we forgot to buy a ticket! We were a few minutes into the journey when Pina called and told us to stay on the train all the way to Cascais because it was raining and apparently there would be more things to do in the rain in Cascais.

Women bathing themselves in depilatory cream on the beach and then washing it off in the sea are very normal and not anything to stare at. Although it did take me a minute to adjust to this as I was trying to figure out why these women were putting thick white cream all over their bodies with what looked like a ice lolly stick. When they didn’t rub it in fully I was thinking, “Well it can’t be suncream can it?” But then at the same time I was thinking you wouldn’t be sitting with your mama and dada removing hair from your bikini line would you? Er, well yes you would… In Brazil.

I woke up about 5.30 AM and went to go and wake Neville who was meant to be sleeping in the room on the top floor… as I pass through the second floor I see the insect repellent and toilet paper that I gave him lying on a table on the patio on the second floor… this is strange. I venture to the top of the apartment and call out his name. He is nowhere to be seen and the bed does not even look slept in… uh oh… I am envisioning kidnap. I don’t know why. I guess I just have a vivid imagination. I ask Kay if she has seen him. She too last saw him last night and not since… I don’t know what to think, his bag is next to the sofa in the living room which means that he must have intentions of returning. I decide to get ready and just wait to see if he appears by quarter past six.